Sun. Sea. Sand... and?

Nice and... dull?

I'd been looking forward to my foreign holiday for a long time. It was going to be my reward, I told myself, for the (sort of) hard work I'd done in my first year. Well, hard socialising might be a better way to put it.

A perfect way to end a mental summer term, I thought I'd take my two weeks in the sun as a detox week: no alcohol, plenty of sleep, quality time with the much-neglected family – and the chance to read distinctly non-literary books! I had always loved these holidays before and saw no reason why this year should have been any different.

But I'll let you in on a secret.

I was bored out of my mind!

I should have realised the holiday wasn't getting off to a great start when we landed. As soon as we picked up our bags from the airport I wanted to text my friends, even if only to let them know I'd got there okay. Yet, recognising my slight phone addiction could lead me to spending horrific amounts of money on not very much at all, I had forbidden myself from sending even one text.

It was difficult, but I managed to forget about it for a while, and got on well enough with the folks. It seemed as though the holiday was going well...

...until I ran out of books to read that is. It was then I realised that there was absolutely nothing to do. Nada. Zilch. Our little cottage was in the middle of pretty countryside, within walking distance only to a little village in which no one spoke any English. This didn't stop me having several attempted conversations with old women (the most social of the village it seemed), but I ended up simply taking to swimming for hours on end to starve off the boredom. Before the first week had even finished I became very aware that all I wanted to talk about was university stuff – so I kept quiet for fear of boring my parents. That they disagreed on what to do every day didn't exactly help matters. I also didn't want to let on how tedious I was finding everything because I didn't want to seem ungrateful – I'd always said I'd continue to go on holiday with them as long as they were willing to pay for me: I couldn't back out on that now!

By the end of the holiday I was more than happy to come home, even if it did mean I had a million and one things to do. University seems to have set a level of business and sociability that I've come to rely on.

But what I found most interesting was that I missed people so much.

I'm going to be honest, for all my declarations, I never thought I would actually miss people all that much once summer started. I thought it might be a bit like “out of sight, out of mind” and that I'd just get on with being busy. So when I realised I really, really missed Derwent and all my friends it came as a bit of a shock.

And the missing people went in cycles: that was unexpected too. As in, first it was the last people I'd spoken to that I missed the most. Then those that I was closest too, and if anyone fell into both categories then I really had a problem. I ended up doing a lot of moping around and reminiscing when I should probably have been doing something a lot more productive. Maybe trying to speak to some younger locals. At least they may have known some English. Incidentally, I did see a Taylor Lautner lookalike in a supermarket one day: but if that was the highlight of the day, I knew I had serious problems!

And then I started to miss really random people: like the random guy I always seemed to have a chat with in Ziggy's. And really random things. As in, I started to miss my window box. And Costcutter (no, I don't understand that one either!). It was as though the entire Uni experience was coming back to haunt me, just because I hadn't expected to miss it so much. I guess it's karma of some sorts.

Then again, on returning to England I realised that my friends had missed me as much as I'd missed them and that was great!

Nothing like a bit of friendly “schadenfreude” to make one feel better.

Add Comment

You must log in to submit a comment.